Goombahs Live Here

Goombahs Live Here, originally uploaded by BelchSpeak.

There is a winery near my home called “Quattro Goomba’s” Winery. While looking for directions to it on my iPhone, I misspelled goomba, adding an H to the end. Google automatically redirected me to a hunk of rock on the western side of Malta. I reckon that must be the mythical source of all goombahs.

Apparently there used to be a fungus growing atop this rock that was highly prized for its medicinal purposes and people were put to death for stealing it. It was harvested for a while too.

From Gozofarmhouse here:

Fungus Rock or, as it is locally known, the Gebla tal-General which translates to General’s Rock. It is called so in remembrance of the Italian General who centuries ago fell to his death while supervising quarrying activities in the area.
History tells us that a special plant with medicinal and healing properties used to grow on Fungus Rock and because of this the Rock used to be heavily guarded during the era of the Knights of Malta. Anyone caught stealing the crop was sentenced to death or to life on the galleys.

The crop was picked and brought to the mainland by using a primitive system of baskets and pulleys

I’m thinking psychodelic mushrooms.